Shares in Elevra Lithium Ltd (ASX: ELV) hit a new 12-month high after the company announced progress on expanding production at its Canadian lithium mine.
The company said in a statement to the ASX that it had further refined its North America Lithium (NAL) expansion program and had "identified a pathway to stage permitting, construction and capital investment to fast-track additional production with lower unit operating costs''.
Staged process to boost output
The company said it had previously outlined an expansion program which would increase spodumene concentrate production to 315,000 tonnes per year, with construction to be completed by the end of FY29.
The company said further:
The critical path constraint on this schedule was permitting. As such, recent efforts have focussed on determining steps and an approach to reduce this constraint.
The company said it had now identified a project development sequence which provided a shorter timeframe to increased production, and added:
The additional new permitting information, combined with existing permits, provides a pathway to stage the expansion of production volumes at NAL in a disciplined, agile and more time efficient manner.
The company said a series of "debottlenecking" steps would be undertaken, which would reduce the overall timeframe and would be staged over time, reducing the initial upfront capital requirements.
The first step was expected to result in an initial 15% to 20% increase in concentrate production, starting in calendar year 2027.
Downstream milling, flotation and filtration capacity at the mine would then be expanded, bringing the production rate up to 315,000 tonnes per year, with that rate expected to start in early calendar 2028.
The company said:
This staged development strategy is anticipated to bring forward incremental production by approximately two years compared with previous plans, while also spreading capital expenditure over a longer period. Given the low risk, brownfield nature of the proposed expansion, the company plans to provide an updated scoping study in the first part of Q2 CY26. In conjunction with updating the scoping study, the company plans to move directly to detailed engineering to advance the respective debottlenecking steps.
Elevra Managing Director Lucas Dow said the company had taken a disciplined and pragmatic approach to accelerating production at NAL, "and the result is a materially improved development pathway''.
He added:
By leveraging new permitting information received since the scoping study, together with permits already in place, we have identified a staged expansion sequence that removes permitting from the critical path and brings forward incremental production in a low-risk, brownfields setting, while maintaining a clear pathway to 315ktpa of spodumene concentrate.
Elevra Lithium shares hit a new 12-month high of $9.09 on the news before settling back to be 1.5% higher at $8.81.
The company was valued at $1.5 billion at the close of trade on Friday.
